106 The Botanical Gazette. (March, 
many biological explanations and theories will need alteration | 
—J. CHRISTIAN BAY. 
The phylogeny of ferns. 
A late paper by J. Bretland Farmer will be found to contain” 
suggestions of special importance to botanists interested in the 
phylogeny of the Filices.!. Mr. Farmer finds that the divisions 
of the neck canal cell of the archegonium into two by a definite, 
transverse wall is by no means invariable. This has beet 
/ 
downwards through it, while in the other ferns th 
and stem issue from the lower surface through the archegom® 
region, and grow up around the edge of the prothal me 
The prothallium is very much like the thallus of Anthocer 
with which it is often associated. 
_These factsadd more weight to the view that the euspora® 
giate ferns are the more primitive and that 
the Filices were closely connected with, if not derived 
the ancestors of such liverworts as Anthoceros. ; 
It is to be regretted that Mr. Farmer's material wa Be 
ficient to make a thorough and critical study of that phase 
the life history of the plant in question. —D. M. Moriib® 
the ancesto 
‘On the Embryoge eaters ; of Botael 
265 ite ae of Angiopteris evecta Hoffm.: Annals : 
